EXPERTS DISCUSS PRESENT, FUTURE OF MEDICARE

Social Security and its health care insurance counterpart Medicare, should survive the future if changes are made in the system to prevent spiraling costs, according to three experts in the field.

Caril Stephens, Social Security office district manager, Jay Williams, executive director of Humana Hospital Cypress, and Abe Asofsky, a retired 40- year Social Security Administration employee, spoke to a chapter of the American Association of Retired Persons in Wynmoor Village Monday.

About 75 people, most of them retired, attended the AARP meeting, billed as "Medicare Now and in the Future."

Stephens told the group that in 1965, the federal government spent $3.6 billion nationwide on health care. By 1982, he said that figure increased to $83.7 billion; $67.8 billion of which was spent on Medicare and Medicaid.

And, said Stephens, "I hope and believe that people are getting better health care than in 1965." He added that the government is working on ways to decrease the costs as a result of the Medicare program.

Williams said he predicts major changes in the Medicare system over the next 10 years.

"The system that has created the increases will not be allowed to stay around any longer. Social issues are not going to be considered because nobody can afford them," Williams said.

One method for cutting costs is the current freeze on the level of payments for medical services which is scheduled to be in effect through September, 1985.

Stephens said, "A doctor can charge whatever he wants, but Medicare will only pay based on what they would have paid on June 30, 1984," when the freeze began.

"Nationwide, many doctors are freezing charges and next year we will be saving dollars in that respect," he said. "Hopefully under the freeze, Medicare will be brought back under control."

Asofsky, an AARP board member and legislative chairman, described two other government proposed methods to cut Medicare costs as "way out in left field" but none the less under consideration by legislators.

He encouraged AARP members to write personal letters to U.S. Rep. E. Clay Shaw and U.S. Sens. Paula Hawkins and Lawton Chiles, urging them to work against the two proposals.

One proposal is a voucher plan in which people would be given a certain amount of money each year by the government to buy private medical insurance, getting the federal government out of the medical insurance business, and the other plan would place Medicare on a "means only" basis, to be used only by people who cannot afford private medical insurance even if they have been paying into the system.

Asofsky called the proposals a disaster and said they were a "far cry from the original concept of Medicare."

But Asofsky added that he is "confident Social Security will be around in 25 years."

The system that has created the increases will not be allowed to stay around any longer. Social issues are not going to be considered because nobody can afford them.-- Jay Williams

A doctor can charge whatever he wants, but Medicare will only pay based on what they would have paid on June 30, 1984. Nationwide, many doctors are freezing charges and next year we will be saving dollars in that respect. Hopefully under the freeze, Medicare will be brought back under control.-- Caril Stephens